The present invention relates to an information disclosure setting method.
There has been developed various inter-user state grasp techniques using the concept called “presence”. The “presence” literally means “existence” of each user for notifying other users. More specifically, the presence means a current location and current state of each user and other information on the existence of each user. By reporting the “presence” to another user in real time, it is possible to grasp the current state of the partner. The concept of the presence and the communication technique has been developed from the IM (Instant Messaging). The IM and the concept of the presence is being standardized by the impp (Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol) working group of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) (see RFC 2778 and RFC 2779). Moreover, the specific presence communication technique is being discussed and standardized by various IETF working groups according to the concept defined by the impp. Outline of the presence communication technique will be explained by referring to FIG. 15. Here, explanation will be given by using the presence communication technique using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) which is being standardized by the SIMPLE (Sip for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) working group of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) which is one of the representative communication techniques of the presence.
FIG. 15 shows transmission and reception of presence information between a terminal of user A denoted by 182, a terminal of user B denoted by 183, and a terminal of user C denoted by 184.
For example, when user A denoted by 182 wants to know presence information on user B and user C in the format as shown by 185, user A gets identifiers (SIP-URI in SIP) of user B and user C, specifies the SIP-URI of user B and user C, and transmits a SIP message SUBSCRIBE message requesting for notification of presence reception (hereinafter, this operation will be referred to as subscribe) to a presence server 181. Upon reception of the message, the presence server 181 reports the presence information on the corresponding SIP-URI, i.e., presence information on user B and user C to user A by using the SIP NOTIFY message. After this, as long as the subscribe from user A to user B and user C is valid, each time user B and user C update their presence information for the presence server 181, update is reported to user A by using a NOTIFY message. The definition on the basic presence information communication using these SIP is detailed in RFC 3265 and RFC 3856. Moreover, there is another communication method which is a batch acquisition of presence information by specifying the group. For example, a buddy list as shown in 185 is considered as one group. A group identifier as shown in 188 is assigned to the group and the group is held in the presence server 181. When user A denoted by 182 wants to know the presence information on user B and user C, user A transmits a SUBSCRIBE message by specifying a group identifier 188 containing user B and user C as group members instead of specifying the SIP-URI of user B and user C and transmitting separate SUBSCRIBE messages requesting for notification of the presence information. Thus, user A can at once get the presence information on user B and user C who are group members. The SIMPLE working group of the IETF calls this method, i.e., specifying the group and getting the presence information on the group members at once, “eventlist subscribe”, which is defined in IETF Internet Draft draft-ietf-simple-event-list-06.txt.
The outline of the presence information communication technique has been explained by using the SIP but the basic concept is same when another communication technique is used. The basic model is such that a user who wants to read presence information on another person specifies the user identifier of the user subjected to presence read or the group identifier of the group to which the user belongs and transmits a presence information notification request message to a server having presence information transmission/reception function such as the 181, thereby getting the presence information on the another person.